Activity-Based Cost Management Making It Work: A Manager's Guide to Implementing and Sustaining an Effective ABC System [Hardcover]

Gary Cokins (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0786307404 | ISBN-13: 978-0786307401 | Publication Date: April 1, 1996 | Edition: 1

ABC: Your Blueprint for Success. ``Cokins' ability illustrate the effectiveness of ABC to those unfamiliar with financial applications and terminology is a major strength of his book. It should be required reading for companies that need to strengthen their commitment to ABC/ABM.''--Dan E. Cowan, Manager, Finance Training and Education, Chrysler Corporation. Activity-based costing is today's superior method for both identifying improvement opportunities and measuring benefits of performance initiatives. Read Gary Cokins' book Activity-Based Cost Management: Making It Work for every answer you need on executing and sustaining an effective ABC management system, explanations on why you should use ABC and explicit, clear-cut descriptions of steps you must take to implement ABC into your company.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (April 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786307404
• ISBN-13: 978-0786307401
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #428,650 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Gary Cokins is a strategist involved with performance management solutions with SAS, a leading provider of performance management and business analytics software headquartered in Cary, North Carolina. Gary is an internationally recognized expert, speaker, and author in advanced cost management and performance improvement systems. Gary received a BS degree with honors in Industrial Engineering/Operations Research from Cornell University in 1971. He received his MBA from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management in 1974.

Gary began his career as a strategic planner FMC's Link-Belt Division and then served as Financial Controller and Operations Manager. In 1981 Gary began his management consulting career first with Deloitte Consulting. Next with KPMG Peat Marwick, Gary was trained on ABC by Harvard Business School Professors Robert S. Kaplan and Robin Cooper. More recently, Gary headed the National Cost Management Consulting Services for Electronic Data Systems (EDS)/ A.T. Kearney.

Gary was the lead author of the acclaimed An ABC Manager's Primer (ISBN 0-86641-220-4) sponsored by the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA). Gary's second book, Activity Based Cost Management: Making it Work (ISBN 0-7863-0740-4), was judged by the Harvard Business School Press as "read this book first." A reviewer for Gary's third book, Activity Based Cost Management: An Executive's Guide (ISBN 0-471-44328-X) said, Gary has the gift to take the concept that many view as complex and reduce it to its simplest terms." This book was ranked number one in sales volume of 151 similar books on BarnesandNoble.com. Gary has also written Activity Based Cost Management in Government (ISBN 1-056726-110-8). His latest books are Performance Management: Finding the Missing Pieces to Close the Intelligence Gap (ISBN 0-471-57690-5) and Performance Management: Integrating Strategy Execution, Methodologies, Risk, and Analytics (ISBN 978-0-470-44998-1).

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Too much promise without delivering, September 19, 2000

By 

Lorenzo Alfonzo "Lorenzo" (Caracas, D.C. Venezuela) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Activity-Based Cost Management Making It Work: A Manager's Guide to Implementing and Sustaining an Effective ABC System (Hardcover)

Cokins' book is certainly well written, interesting and updated, though nothing new is said there on the subject... it even falls short from its "making it work" promise (see Title), driving the reader thru lots of figures and nice diagrams (119 in total) but very little about "how-to-implement" an ABC/ABM system in your company. It may be useful to make a "sales" presentation for ABC/ABM systems (many of those diagrams will surely fit in), but its main practical value for everyday operations may be found in Chapter 2, where he insightfully describes some causes for ABC/ABM failure. So if you're looking for a "cookbook" (as I was), you'd better look somewhere else.

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Complete, industry neutral and unbiased - Recommended!, February 25, 2001

By 

Mike Tarrani "www.tarrani.com" (Deltona, FL USA) - See all my reviews
(COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Activity-Based Cost Management Making It Work: A Manager's Guide to Implementing and Sustaining an Effective ABC System (Hardcover)

ABC is typically associated with manufacturing. My review is from the perspective of an IT consultant who employs ABC both as an internal tool for planning and managing consulting projects, and as a technique that I propose to clients.

This book is, in my opinion, one of the best I have read on the subject. It is not biased to any specific industry, and is not a gushing testimonial to ABC. In fact, the book starts with some pitfalls of ABC and how to avoid them, then goes into a frank discussion of why such systems fail. The book also contains a chapter on common misconceptions of ABC and succinctly dispells them. I appreciate not only the author's balanced approach, but the great advice he gives to make an ABC implementation successful.

If you are new to ABC the framework that is provided for mapping cost flows is going to be invaluable and key to understanding activity-based cost management. I especially liked the chapter on the unification of time, cost and quality - these are the real reasons for implementing ABC and the author does a great job of explaining the interrelationships.

The best part of this book is the chapters that address implementation. The approach taken by the author is straightforward, but admittedly not simple. The roadmap the author provides is an excellent starting point for an implementation plan, as is the advice on ongoing operations in an ABC management environment.

In my industry, IT consulting, this book provides an excellent approach to determining total cots of ownership (TCO) for systems and applications. This is not well understood by my colleagues or clients, and is further clouded by conflicting material from some industry analysts that will go unnamed. I believe that ABC is the only viable approach to getting this aspect of information technology under control. ABC is also an excellent tool for planning outsourcing engagements because you can see where the cost drivers are and systematically eliminate them. If you are doing this from the client side you will greatly reduce cost risk; if from the outsourcing provider side you will improve profitability. ABC is also useful to IT consultants and consulting companies to design services or to eliminate service offerings that are not profitable. Using techniques to examine contribution margin is the norm - using ABC is far more powerful.

Bottom line: this book clearly explains activity-based cost management, provides an unbiased discussion on the strengths and weaknesses of its use, and shows how to effectively implement it in an organization. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who is exploring ABC or is involved in an ABC implementation.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars High-end Primer to mid-Intermediate - Recommended, November 30, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Activity-Based Cost Management Making It Work: A Manager's Guide to Implementing and Sustaining an Effective ABC System (Hardcover)

This Book provides an excellent, in-depth overview of ABC/ABM issues; the charts are well thought-out and contain valuable information. This subject area has attracted too many authors, but I wish that I had read this one several years ago (I'm using it to brush up on the subject for an advanced Consulting interview). From my perspective, the book should have been about a 100 pages longer; as that would have provided the necessary space for Cokins to take ABM to its logical conclusion: building a full management reporting system, complete with process benchmarking, personnel and process evaluations mechanisms and to discuss the implications at the senior management and organizational structure levels. Although, this is too much to ask; as it would have rendered the scope of the book too broad for the typical reader.